Weekly Funding Signal
Stablecoin payment rails and on-chain trading infrastructure anchored crypto allocations this week, while AI capital concentrated heavily in enterprise-grade cloud and agent orchestration.
Key Deals
| Project | Sector | Amount | Investors | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atum | Stablecoin Payment | $13.5M Seed | Led by Variant; PayPal Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Road Capital, Abstract Ventures among others | Cross-stablecoin, cross-chain coordination layer with AI agent payment support positions it for APAC cross-border flows. |
| HIFI | Stablecoin Infrastructure | $37M Series A | Led by Left Lane Capital | $7B annualized processed volume signals mainstream stablecoin settlement demand ahead of tokenized treasury expansion. |
| XStable | DeFi / RWA Trading | Multi-million (undisclosed) | YZi Labs, Sui Foundation, Taisu Ventures, Catcher VC; prior backing from Solana, Amber Group, KuCoin Ventures | AI-native gold and FX trading rails with $100M daily volume bridge Asia's institutional demand for on-chain macro assets. |
| Breed VC Fund II | Venture Capital | $15M Fund | FalconX, Hutt Capital, Arrington Capital; angels from Castle Island, Dragonfly, CoinFund | Day-zero and pre-seed crypto fund raising from institutional LPs indicates renewed appetite for earliest-stage infrastructure bets. |
Builder to Watch
- Atum: Led by former Visa crypto product lead Pete Cooling, Atum is building a coordination layer that handles authorization, routing, and confirmation across stablecoins and blockchains without issuing its own token or taking custody. Its support for x402 and MPP protocols makes it uniquely positioned for AI agent-driven payments, an emerging frontier that Asian fintech and trading desks are watching closely. Backing from PayPal Ventures and Mirana Ventures — the latter deeply tied to Asia's market-making and exchange ecosystem — underscores its cross-border relevance for the region.
Also Noted
- MeshWallet: TRON-based gasless USDT wallet completed a $10M private round to simplify dual-token operations and grow its user ecosystem on the TRC20 network popular across Asia.
- Travix: On-chain perpetual protocol advancing compute-asset and East Asia equity exotic perpetuals with undisclosed seed funding that included Amber Group.
- infiniFi: Yield protocol raised over $3M led by Electric Capital, expanding across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and integrating with major DeFi protocols. No direct Asia anchor, though it holds cross-chain relevance.
- Verda: Full-stack AI cloud provider raised $189M with participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, and explicitly plans expansion into Asia.
- Nscale: $3.36B convertible round featured Abu Dhabi Investment Council among investors, extending its AI cloud footprint toward the Middle East corridor.
Capital Flow
- Stablecoin payment and settlement infrastructure captured the largest share of crypto funding, with HIFI and Atum together raising over $50M.
- Investors favored non-custodial coordination layers and gasless UX models that reduce friction for cross-border and agent-driven transactions.
- The Asia angle was strongest around TRON's retail payment rails, Sui-linked FX infrastructure, and Middle East capital participating in AI cloud scale-ups.
PANews View
Stablecoin funding is shifting away from issuance toward orchestration, settlement, and agent-ready payment layers — a sign the market is maturing beyond the stablecoin itself and into the plumbing around it. Asia remains a demand center for on-chain FX and compute-asset trading, but most large infrastructure checks still originate from Western VCs. The gap lies in Asia-led mega-rounds for crypto infrastructure, which remain scarce even as regional demand accelerates.
